Well, the answer to that very question depends both on the games and whether you were around when these games were the 'in thing'.

Classic Arcadia Collection consists of six of the earliest (and some believe the best) games ever seen: Invaders, Axiens, Muncher, Missile, Crazy Er'ert (I never did understand why the star was there. Is Er'bert a swear word, or something?), and Grebit. For all those who quietly snigger at games like this whilst loading up Blasterzombiephaze, just remember that these games were the predecessors to all the techojunk floating around.

So... The games. Graphically and sonically, these games won't astound you. On the plus side though is the fact that, that from a programmer's point of view, the whole selection is very tightly designed. For anyone who's never played any of these oldies, here they are one by one.

INVADERS

This is the standard shoot-'em-up (I can't believe I'm explaining Invaders). Take away all the phazers, smart bombs, thrusters, etc and you're left with something like the screenshot. The block of ships at the top move left and right, gradually getting lower, and your mission is to kill them. Basically.

As a faithful representation of an all-time classic, this has to be worth a second look.

AXIENS

In the history of shoot-'em-ups, this came next. It involves the same old Space Invaders stuff (no doubt something to do with it being a straight conversion of Galaxians!), but with the invaders bombing down the screen with the intention of severely hurting you. There's enough extras here to make this a darn playable game.

MUNCHERS

You've seen it on the covertape, you've played it to death. Now buy an official version and play that to death as well.

Muncher is nice as a PacMan clone but it doesn't really gel. Come to think of it, maybe the original didn't either...

MISSILE

This one involves an alien race attempting to blow you to smithereens. And, erm, that's it. If you're looking for fast fun and excitement then this game is definitel one to be avoided.

CRAZY ER*BERT

This was known as ‘The Game That No-One Could Control' and it's just as blimmm' difficult today. The easiest way to describe this game is as an isometric beat-'em-up on a mountain. (You have to change the colour of the blocks by jumping up and down on them. Ed)

It's too confusing, and it really isn't much fun. Another duff one, methinks.

GREBIT

If you've ever played Frogger, then you'll understand Grebit. The idea is to guide your frogs across a busy road, and to the safety of a lily pad on the other side.

Frogger is as Frogger does, it wasn't all that thrilling then and, well, you can work out the rest yourself.

So, we've seen a bundle of old classics, some good, some bad. But whether a collection such as this is worthy of a re-release is debatable. In the end, it's got to be subjective. Remember though that this stuff started tit all.